Monday, June 14, 2010

AmyJane

... Is the wife of that Gruber guy. I don't use Twitter much, but she is funny.
Examples of her tweets:

  • The couple behind me has been discussing whether a wooden picnic table is animal, vegetable, or mineral. Unsurprisingly, it's getting ugly.
  • She thinks it's a mineral but he's pretty sure it's vegetable, since you could eat it.
  • She's never heard of the animal/vegetable/mineral classification system. He concedes it might be something only his family uses.

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4 comments:

Ben said...

It's not that weird of a question:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Questions#Popular_variants

RonC said...

Perhaps 'Twenty Questions' radio show, which ran for ever and a day in the UK, didn't travel elsewhere ? The idea was by using less than twenty questions of the 'host' the participant would ID the object exactly. 'Animal, with some vegetable - or is that vegetative - tendencies, and definite links to the (manufactured) mineral world' might lead to questions like "Is it Danish", "can it be found in Bolton", and so on...........

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I think the joke is that these things and the 20 Questions games is supposedly known very well, also in the US.

I've never played it though. Is a wooden table properly mineral or vegetable?

Pascal [P-04referent] said...

Wood: it's a DEAD vegetable, d'uh!

But if it's plastic, made from petrol, which once was a vegetable... I think anything fossilized officially becomes mineral.

A popular question in Lebanese shows is the ever-classic: "Is its length bigger than its witdh?" ROTFWL!
Our ancestors invented the modern alphabet, but clearly not the axioms of geometry. :o)

France once spoofed such games with the classic "Le Schmilblick".
"The answer is yes. What were you thinking about?
- Same thing YOU were thinking, you dirty old man!
- Please, people, some manners, we're live on television! I remind you that the Schmilblick is just an egg. Next candidate, what's your question? Take your guess."